Centre Didn't Ask For Oxygen Shortage Deaths Data During COVID, Claims Rajasthan & Chhattisgarh

The controversy triggered by the Union Health Ministry's claim in the Parliament that states and UTs have not reported deaths due to oxygen shortage during COVID-19 second wave is refusing to die down.

On Thursday, health ministers of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh claimed their states were never asked to submit the relevant data and hence did not report the number of deaths due to oxygen shortage.

BCCL

Chhattisgarh health minister TS Singh Deo pointed out that the ¡°number of deaths in a day, deaths with comorbidity, deaths without comorbidity and type of comorbidity¡± were the only categories in which data was sought. Singh Deo alleged that the Centre deliberately misled Parliament without checking with the states.

Taking note of constant warnings & suggestions from Shri @RahulGandhi Chhattisgarh was one of the primary state which maintained surplus oxygen during the COVID crisis. The O2 production capacity of CG is 388.87MT while the peak consumption reported was 180MT on 26th April. (2/6)

¡ª TS Singh Deo (@TS_SinghDeo) July 22, 2021

We're expanding our public audit to get all information on any death in hospitals or outside due to lack of O2 during 2nd wave of Covid.

I request NGOs, members of civil society & journalists of CG to bring any such past event to our notice for the betterment of state. (4/6)

¡ª TS Singh Deo (@TS_SinghDeo) July 22, 2021

The Central Govt has never sought data on deaths due to lack of Oxygen from states. They ask for:

??Number of deaths on a day
??Deaths with Comorbidity
??Deaths without Comorbidity
??Type of Comorbidity

GOI deliberately MISLEAD THE PARLIAMENT without checking with states. (6/6)

¡ª TS Singh Deo (@TS_SinghDeo) July 22, 2021

On Thursday, Congress leader KC Venugopal moved a privilege motion against Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar for ¡°misleading¡± the parliament on deaths due to shortage of oxygen.

He said the entire country witnessed how people were scrambling for oxygen and many patients in several hospitals died due to the shortage of the life-saving gas during the second wave of coronavirus.

Privilege motion moved

"I have moved a privilege motion to the Rajya Sabha chairman demanding action against the Minister of State for Health due to misinformation given to the Rajya Sabha on my starred question," he said.

AFP

Venugopal said he had asked a question on how many people died in the country due to lack of oxygen, but the minister replied that there was no such death.

"This is totally baseless and against the truth because we have enough evidence in the public domain. You can see that their own Goa minister quoted that so many people died due to oxygen shortage. Their Karnataka minister also said so," he said, adding that ministers in Haryana and Andhra Pradesh also admitted deaths due to shortage of oxygen.

What other states claimed

On Wednesday, Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope had said that not a single death was reported in the state due to lack of oxygen.

Reuters

"Not a single patient has died due to lack of oxygen during the peak of COVID-19 in Maharashtra. Proper management of oxygen was done, always. Even at the time when about 65,000 patients were in Maharashtra, oxygen was properly arranged and provided to the patients. By the grace of God, nobody died due to lack of oxygen in the state," Tope said.

The governments of Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh have also said that no deaths were reported there due to oxygen shortages.

Reuters

The AAP government in Delhi, however, said that there have been many deaths due to oxygen shortage in Delhi and other places across the country and it was "completely false" to say no one died for want of the life-saving gas.

"If no deaths occurred due to oxygen shortage, why did hospitals move high court one after another every day? Hospitals had been saying that oxygen shortage led to deaths. The media, too, flagged this issue daily," Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said.

"Television channels and newspapers reported how hospitals ran out of oxygen. It is completely false ad wrong to say that no one died due to oxygen shortage," he said.

"There have been many deaths due to oxygen shortage in Delhi and many other places across the country. It was really sad and unfortunate," Jain said.